If you are as hapless a spectator as I am to the realm of human endeavor known as "the skilled trades," you probably have two questions for those who practice the obscure arts of plumbing, masonry, carpentry and electrical wiring:

1) What do you mean you can't attend to my home repair crisis today?
2) Why do you charge so damn much money?

Skilled tradespeople are hard to find (and hard to keep on the job) because the demand for their services typically exceeds the supply, particularly in Michigan.

Their services tend to be expensive (relative to those of say, restaurant workers, social media consultants, and state legislators) for the same reason: There are simply more of the latter in urgent need of a good plumber than vice versa.

Pragmatic Republicans led by Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder have been fretting about the dwindling supply of skilled tradespeople here for several years now; they say they're determined to do something about it.

Snyder, in particular, sees his initiative to boost the number of highly trained tradespeople as the solution to two pressing problems: The shortage of labor needed to tackle $4 billion worth of overdue infrastructure repair and improvements, and the need for a tax base large and prosperous enough to pay for them.

Plumbers are people, too

If you happened to be eavesdropping last week on the major employers and GOP donors who flock to the Mackinac Policy Conference each year, you would have heard many of them talking about carpenters, masons and electricians in the most appreciative terms, almost as if skilled tradespeople were fellow human beings with families to support and legitimate claims to a prosperous middle-class life.

You might have seen Snyder's would-be successor, Lt. Gov. Brian Calley, tell a Grand Hotel audience that "Every plumber needs an accountant, and every accountant needs a plumber" — Calley's favorite iteration of the proposition that those who snake our clogged toilets are professionals no less skilled, hard-working and deserving of a living wage than those who make sure we're taking advantage of every tax deduction we're entitled to claim.

And you might have concluded that a majority of Michigan Republicans regard denizens of the skilled trades as altogether more meritorious than the public educators, environmentalists and Medicaid recipients they delight in disparaging.

But a few hours in the chambers of the Republican-led Michigan Senate and House of Representatives would have dispelled any such delusion.

These would be the economic literacy-challenged lawmakers who fail to grasp the critical nexus between supply and demand, but whose resentment of plumbers and electricians who earn more than they do runs high.

And who can blame them? After all, we Michiganders might be able to get by with a lot fewer plumbers and electricians, but who among us can imagine a state without Republican lawmakers?

Wait a minute ... Do you suppose they've got that backward?

The triumph of minority rule

Snyder had warned that the repeal of prevailing wage, a sop to non-union builders and contractors who championed it, would undermine his efforts to increase the supply of skilled tradespeople in the state. Anti-union Republicans who supported it knew they didn't have the votes to override a gubernatorial veto, so they relied on contracting firms and conservative free-market groups to bankroll an initiative to put the issue before voters this November.

Problem is, polling suggested that voters oppose repealing the prevailing wage requirement at least as vehemently as Snyder does. By adopting the proposal themselves after it had amassed (barely) the 250,000 signatures needed to qualify for the ballot, GOP legislators both preempted a popular referendum and dodged the threat of a veto, since Michigan law renders Snyder powerless to thwart legislation brought before lawmakers via the petition process.

(And yes, alert readers, this is the same Legislature that had opted the previous day not to preempt a popular vote on legalizing marijuana, on grounds that to do so would be an anti-democratic end run around their constituents' druthers. How dmake sense of this flagrant contradiction, except by concluding that the nascent marijuana industry has yet to match the building contractors' skill in buying off legislators?)

So the prevailing wage law is dead, the most skilled tradespeople will be drawn to more remunerative opportunities outside Michigan, and there's not a thing Rick Snyder or you can do about it.

Unless you happen to be a plumber fielding an emergency home repair call from Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof (R-West Olive), who masterminded the legislative crusade to put uppity tradespeople in their place:

"A broken sump pump, Senator? That's terrible. We can get someone out to look at it — well, how about never? Does never work for you?"

Brian Dickerson in the Free Press' editorial page editor. Contact him at bdickerson@freepress.com.